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Two parliamentary aspirants for the Navrongo Constituency have pledged to lobby with Parliament to increase the District Assembly Common Fund(DACF)  for Person With Disabilities (PWDs)  from  2 per cent  to  5 percent.
 
Mr Pwoawuvi Joseph Weguri of the People’s National Convention Party (PNC) and Madam Suzana Kuberizega Agoriba  of the Progressive People’s  Party(PPP)  made the pledge at a Parliamentary debate organized by the National Commission for Civic Education in collaboration with the Ghana News Agency, with support from the European Union.

They said the 2 per cent of DACF meant for the PWDs was woefully inadequate and was not disbursed as expected to them by some assemblies.

Whilst the PNC aspirant said he would exploit the tourism potentials and the irrigation facility in the area to create jobs for the youth, the Parliamentary aspirant for the PPP said she would lobby with their flagbearer, Papa Kwesi Ndoum, to open branches of some of his companies in the area to help create jobs for the youth.

“Already the flagbearer of the PPP has established 70 companies and provided 12,000 jobs to people in the country.  I will lobby him to ensure that he decentralizes the operations of more of these companies to this constituency to help create jobs”, Madam Agoriba said.

She said she would establish a standard library in the constituency, set up an education endowment fund to cater for the needy but brilliant students as well as institute an education policy to ensure that all children of school going age are sent to school.

The PNC Parliamentary aspirant blamed the poor standard of education in the Constituency to lack of educational materials coupled with lack of incentives and refresher training for teachers and promised to reverse the trend should he be made the MP.

Mr Pontius Pilate Apaaby Baba, the Regional Director of the NCCE, lauded the efforts of the members of the Constituency Inter-Party Dialogue Committee for complementing the efforts of the NCCE to organize the programme.

He said the exercise which is a national programme was aimed at providing a platform for the Parliamentary aspirants of the various political parties to tell the electorate what they had for them should they be elected.

The candidates were asked questions on education, health, agriculture and employment by the constituents.

The Parliamentary candidates of the National Democratic Congress and the New Patriotic Party did not participate in the debate.